Checking in on West Virginia's Mountaintop-Removal Mining Crisis

John Esposito and the author before flying over the mountaintop-removal mining sites in West Virginia.

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After I discussed West Virginia's coal-mining industry with Senator John Rockefeller's office when I was lobbying in Washington, D.C., in May, I couldn't pass up the opportunity when my friend John Esposito, president of Warner Music Nashville, offered to show me examples of mountaintop-removal mining in the state. "Espo," as his friends call him, was the force behind the Warner Music Group's and the Grammys' efforts to go green. It was while greening the paper inserts of Warner C.D.s that Espo learned about mountaintop-removal mining and got involved, becoming an environmental leader on the issue.

Mountaintop-removal mining, the subject of a story in this magazine not too long ago, is the practice of blasting the tops off mountains to mine thin seams of coal. First, forests are cleared and explosive charges are detonated to break through the mountain's surface layer. The debris is then bulldozed off the side of the mountain into the valleys and streams below, and towering 20-story draglines then scrape out the coal. After the coal is extracted, the coal companies are legally obligated to return the mining sites to their original contours, but the mountains are pretty much impossible to restore. Does this mountaintop look reclaimed to you?

A section of the Appalachian Mountains before mountaintop-removal mining.

Another view from the Appalachians.

The coal companies do all of this just to get to several feet of coal. Fighting this issue is John Esposito's passion.

Espo is the guy we all wished we would be like when we grew up because somehow he managed to become a person in power and remain cool. He has a deep knowledge and love of music, and now he is using those qualities to bring awareness to the mountaintop-removal mining crisis in Appalachia. In May, Espo helped organize the Music Saves Mountains concert, featuring performances by Dave Matthews, Emmylou Harris, Kathy Mattea, Patty Loveless, Alison Krauss, Patty Griffin, and Big Kenny. The show closed with a dream rendition of John Prine's "Paradise"—Harris, Krauss, Mattea, and Loveless onstage together.

And this is the guy I had showing me, as he said, "the 500 scars on Appalachian Mountains that will never be healed."

Since only the mountaintops are removed, none of the damage is visible from the ground. Even driving past the mountains on the elevated interstate, all one sees is West Virginia's lush greenery. We had to fly over to view the destruction. From the air, we covered 60 miles—patch after patch after patch of flat dirt plateaus where mountains used to be, all for cheap energy.

Aerial view of mountaintop-removal mining site.

Detail of active mountaintop-removal mine.

The mountaintop was blown off to retrieve these meager seams of coal.

To give a sense of the magnitude of the mining sites, the truck's wheels are eight feet high.

Destruction.

Coal washing results in thousands of gallons of contaminated water resembling black sludge.

The mountaintop-removal mining sites are near communities.

One of the most troubling casualties of mountaintop-removal mining, however, is the Marsh Fork Elementary School. Located in Coal River Valley, the school sits 150 yards from a coal silo and 400 yards from a seeping sludge dam. Goals Coal, a Massey Energy subsidiary, is currently building a second silo some 500 feet from the school. The only school for miles in any direction, the local children have a choice: attend the school contaminated with coal dust (which causes severe respiratory problems) or face extremely long bus rides. Community members have been working for years to build a new, safe school but have had little support and are struggling to raise sufficient funds. And, for the record, the school was on the site first.

Although mountaintop-removal mining has existed since the 1960s, it became prevalent during the 1990s. The argument the coal companies give for this destruction is that they are creating jobs, but mountaintop-removal mining actually eliminates the miner from the process. In fact, the increased mechanization has drastically lowered the number of mining jobs needed to produce each ton of coal. Despite the coal industry's influence, the overall number of surface mining jobs in Appalachia made up only .89 percent of all jobs in West Virginia in 2006 (when the most recent data was available). But mining wages still account for a large percentage of total wages in areas, not because the jobs are so numerous, but because other jobs are so scarce. Meanwhile the sustainable resources that could provide jobs, such as timber, are dumped and wasted.

The coal companies are able to create this combined ecological, economic, and cultural destruction because they seemingly exploit legal loopholes. The law states that the mountaintops have to be restored to "equal or better economic use," but they are not required to restore the biological function of the mountain. Of the 540 Appalachian Mountains destroyed, 16 have been reclaimed—one site was turned into a jail and another into a golf course. But the idea that a flattened mountain is good for economic development makes no sense: West Virginia has 1.3 million acres of flat, undeveloped yet developable land.

After the flyover, Espo introduced me to local activist Larry Gibson, who took us to Kayford Mountain, the Gibson family's home since the 1700s. It's now surrounded by 7,500 acres of land destroyed by mountaintop-removal mining. "Almost heaven," Larry calls Kayford Mountain, and it almost is, as its beauty is rocked by more than 15 explosive charges per day, and the air is quiet from lack of wildlife. You can see the seams of coal bursting from the ground as you walk around Kayford Mountain. These seams are putting Larry's life in danger.

The local coal industry knows exactly how much coal Larry is sitting on, and has tried every means to get to it. "You'll find how much you believe in something when a big, intimidating person stands before you," Larry said. Larry has repeatedly been driven off the road by coal trucks. His home, which is five miles away from anyone else's, has been the site of numerous drive-by shootings. His property's water tables have been blown up, so all of his water now has to be brought in. The coal companies have even told their employees that they will have five more years of employment if Larry would just give up Kayford Mountain. "If you choose to fight an issue and make it your life, it will cost you," Larry says. "I'm against coal 'cause coal kills. The dust, the toxins in the water supply—there is no such thing as clean-coal technology. When will this stop being about the money and start being about the people? When will the people count?"

Larry Gibson, the author, and John Esposito.

The author, John Esposito, and Larry Gibson admiring the anti-mountaintop-removal-mining stickers on Gibson's truck.

Detail of the stickers.

One of the Gibson family homes on Kayford Mountain.

Seams of coal visible on the grounds of Gibson's property.

An artist's memorial to the Appalachian Mountains destroyed by mountaintop-removal mining on Gibson's property.

"In loving memory of the mountains."

The view from the edge of Gibson's property.

Looking down from the edge of Gibson's land. Coal-mining draglines are visible in the background.

A bullet hole from one of the drive-by shootings on Gibson's property.

Coal companies should no longer be allowed to blow up mountains, turn streams into waste dumps, and clear-cut some of the most biologically diverse forests in the world. Nor should they be allowed to destroy the quality of life for those that call Appalachia home, especially when there is an alternative to mountaintop-removal mining: wind power. In the long run, wind would provide more jobs and profit than the short-term economic gains of surface mining, and would allow for concurrent uses of the mountain, including forestry and tourism. With less than seven percent of the coal mined in the U.S. coming from mountaintop removal, and it taking a minute and half to burn through a ton of coal, a sustainable solution is the answer. "I am far from the first person to talk about this issue," Larry Gibson said. "The media has been here—20/20, Nightline—and none of it has caused change, but you can." And here is how: